WATCH: Dashcam footage shows arrest of man who allegedly abducted child in Wichita
24 January 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Benjamin Brady, 34, arrested and charged with kidnapping and theft, said he is glad the girl in the back seat of the car he stole is safe.
Benjamin Brady’s first appearance (KSN Photo)
On Nov. 20, 2022, just before 7 p.m., a 2006 Lexus RX was stolen from a north Wichita liquor store that had a 6-year-old girl in the back seat.
According to court documents released on Jan. 22, 2023, the girl was left in the car while her dad went inside a liquor store.
“He stated he left it unlocked and running in the parking lot because [the girl] was asleep in the back, and he wanted her to be warm,” state court documents.
After coming out of the liquor store, the dad realized his car and daughter were gone.
A man working at the liquor store reviewed video footage and found that the suspect, Brady, had bought a beer and left. After leaving, he then stole the car.
FLOCK cameras showed Brady in the stolen car heading south into Oklahoma.
The Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP), the Kansas Turnpike Authority (KTA) and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) all assisted the Wichita Police Department (WPD).
Soon after Brady made it into Oklahoma, around 8 p.m., the OHP stopped the car and arrested him without incident.
The girl was found safe in the back seat and reunited with her family.
After Brady was read his Miranda Rights, he told an OHP trooper that he was “glad that [the girl] was safe” and that he stole the car because he was homeless and cold. He said that the reason he was driving to Oklahoma was that “the homeless people were nicer there.”
Brady also claims that he didn’t realize the girl was in the car until he got on the road and looked in the back seat. He says he was “trying to figure out what to do” as he continued into Oklahoma.
According to court documents, the girl remembers portions of the incident. She said that she remembers her dad not being in the car and then seeing an unknown man get inside. She remembers that she was scared “because it was not her dad” and that she was “supposed to be going home, but the unknown man drove the wrong direction.”
The girl also claims that he never touched her, and he never asked her to touch him.